


who left you so?

by younglegends



Category: Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magika | Puella Magi Madoka Magica
Genre: F/F, Post-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-06
Updated: 2014-09-06
Packaged: 2018-02-16 08:05:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2262162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/younglegends/pseuds/younglegends
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Homura wakes up from her dream and turns right around, tries to chase it back down.</p>
            </blockquote>





	who left you so?

**Author's Note:**

> post-series (anime only; i watched rebellion story when it came out in theatres and regretted it, not to mention forgot most of it) and homura-centric. title taken from [an angry blade](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKa1QcGode4) by iron & wine. oh homura, you make me so sad.
> 
> the violence warning is for a very small part, but it's still there regardless.

  
Homura wakes up from her dream and turns right around, tries to chase it back down. _Wait,_ she’s calling, running through a murky fog, greyish white and milky. Pieces rub off onto her skin like rot as she blindly makes her way through, until she’s caked in it, dragging her down. _Wait._ Her arms are outstretched, fingers reaching, as though to touch. She’s so close. The light. The light.

It’s six thirty-two AM and her alarm is ringing, shrill. Outside, the sun is rising. It’s a beautiful day.

\--

On her way home from school she passes by the park again, even though she told herself she wouldn’t anymore. The boy is there, as he is every day, knees in the sand. Homura watches him for a while, then steps forward, kneels down next to him.

“Hello,” she says, “it’s me again, Homura. Do you remember me?”

“Madoka,” says Tatsuya. He’s drawn another sketch in the sand; he’s gotten better at it. He looks up at her, grins wide, and it sends a twinge through Homura’s chest. They even have the same smile.

“Madoka,” Homura agrees, with a sigh. He never says any other name. There’s a sudden lump in her throat, even though it’s been a long time, so long. So much longer to go. It doesn’t get any easier. “Can you really see her?”

Tatsuya nods vigorously, points at his drawing. Flowers and frills and disconnected lines, ears pointing out, eyes wide open. Homura looks at it and remembers.

“You know, her shoulders aren’t really that broad,” Homura says. “Her chin’s a little more pointed. And her eyes, they’re soft. Like she could see right into the heart of you, like she could see what lay there and still smile, reach out, take your hand–” She stops. Tatsuya’s looking at her, head tilted to the side, questioning.

“She’s beautiful, isn’t she,” Homura says. There’s an ant, crawling over the mouth of the figure Tatsuya’s drawn in the sand. She gets to her feet, to leave.

“Homura?”

Homura’s head whips around so fast her neck cracks. “Madoka,” she gasps, and she’s shaking. The skyline trembles before her, buildings and lampposts blending together against the melt of the sunset on the horizon, and she can’t breathe, can’t think. It takes only a moment. When she steadies, she looks down. Tatsuya is staring up at her.

“Homura?” he repeats, uncertainly. Something in Homura’s chest falls, all the way down. But it comes back up again, eventually. Up, down. The rise and fall of her chest as she remembers how to breathe.

“Yes,” says Homura. “It’s only me. It’s only Homura.” She smiles down at him, gentle. “Goodbye, Tatsuya-chan.”

\--

One time when it seems like the wraiths will never end, Homura turns in the midst of battle to shout something – an order, maybe, or an observation, she doesn’t remember now – and sees Kyouko standing there, spear pointed up towards the sky, eyes clouded. She flickers, just barely, and Homura’s heart stops.

“Kyouko,” she calls, a little panicked, and Kyouko looks up at her, blinks.

“Kinda busy right now,” Kyouko says, and she’s moving again, spear raised and slammed back into the eye of a shapeless wraith looming behind her, and it cracks, form disintegrating into dust. The shape of her silhouette against the night sky is so strong that Homura thinks she must have imagined it.

The way Kyouko fights is vicious, a whirlwind of chains blazing a trail of chaotic red and rubble, erratic and unpredictable. Messy, Homura would say, irresponsible, but these days Kyouko’s taken on more of an edge. Eating more and more, like she’s always hungry for something. Teeth always bared, sharp, even as she leaps from wraith to wraith, chains tearing through them in destruction. And who is she seeing, thinks Homura – who is she fighting? The glow of the streetlamps form tall, merging shadows, and from a distance the point where they converge looks almost like a figure, small and cornered at the end of an alley, yet refusing to back down. Memory pulses within her, remembers the glint of a raised sword. Then a wraith shoulders its way into Homura’s line of vision, and the illusion is gone. A trick of the light. 

Later when it’s all over, when Mami alights on the ground and Kyouko blows dust off the tip of her spear, Homura walks up to her, hesitates. She’d never have asked, before, but with time she’s realized the permanence of the situation. All those lives, before, and this one is real. This is the only one left.

“Kyouko,” she says. “You’re okay, right?”

Kyouko looks at her like she’s sprouted another head. “Why the hell wouldn’t I be,” says Kyouko, and Homura has no answer for that.

“Hey,” says Kyouko, as they head off towards home. “Anyone got a snack? I’m starved.”

\--

It would be so easy. It’s so familiar, like muscle memory in her fingers itching towards her weapon, clenching into fists. A bullet between the eyes, another clipping a hole in its chest. A string of them along its tail. Each one coming with a satisfying  _bang,_ ripping into skin, into boneless gut. And then she would take it apart with her bare hands, like she’s done so many times before; tearing off limbs, a twist of the neck. Crush of flesh under her heel. And still none of it would work.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” says Kyubey, tilting its head to the side.

“No reason,” says Homura. Its stark white face looks so wrong illuminated against the horizon – it’s here, when  _she_ is not – so she looks away.

_Bang,_ she thinks.

\--

On one warm spring night they’re all spread out on the grass, gazing up at the sky. It’s been a quiet evening, and peace comes rare these days. There’s a slight hint of a breeze, and the grass is soft.

“You know,” says Kyouko. She stretches her arms out behind her, shifts, lets the tops of the grass graze her cheek. “On nights like these I feel almost invincible. Like I can live forever.”

Homura looks not at her, but a little past her shoulder, over at the sky, at the stars. Says nothing.

“Hey,” says Mami, pointing up, “a shooting star.” She laughs a little. “Make a wish.”

“Very funny,” says Kyouko.

“Yes, well,” says Mami, settling back into the grass, a slight smile on her face. “I don’t think there’s anything I want to wish for anymore, anyways.”

Homura closes her eyes. She can see her face now, lit like a beacon in the glow of the starlight. And her hair’s blowing in the wind, and her eyes are so bright, and her smile is knowing, is warm, like everything Homura’s waited for her entire life. She’s opening her mouth to speak, and Homura reaches out, because she wants to feel the curve of her cheek under her fingers, where it dips down and gives way to her lips, to the bow of her smile, radiant, because she wants it to be real, because she wants – she wants –

She opens her eyes. The ribbon in her hair rustles in the wind, like the hush of a whisper, like a secret.

\--

Homura wakes up from her dream and turns right around, tries to chase it back down.  _Wait,_ she’s calling, running through the fog as it envelopes her, tries to smother her.  _Wait._ It’s so thick, and she can’t get free, can’t get through – the murkiness is pulling her under, tipping her over the edge, but she clings on, reaches out, as though to touch. She’s so close.  _Please._ And then the fog is gone, lifted away like it was never there at all, and when Homura breaks through to the other side there’s nothing but the light. The light. Piercing pure and white and Homura doesn’t shield her eyes, keeps them wide open as she holds out her arms, vision clear, heart impossibly light. It’s warm.

It’s six thirty-five AM and her alarm is ringing, shrill. Outside, the sun has risen. It’s a beautiful day.

 


End file.
